Method for organizing a plurality of documents and apparatus for displaying a plurality of documents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for organizing a plurality of documents and an apparatus for displaying a plurality of documents. Said plurality of documents are clustered, and the resulted clusters of different levels are displayed as virtual directories, thus helping the user to navigate to the target document quickly. The navigation may be performed with the aid of topics and abstracts. Furthermore, the user's operations may be reduced through controlling the displayed contents to be within the size of the screen.

1 . A method for organizing a plurality of documents, comprising: 
 clustering said plurality of documents;    organizing those documents having common features into respective clusters based on the result of the clustering;    clustering the documents contained in the respective generated clusters, and organizing those having common features into respective finer clusters.    
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , characterized in displaying on the user interface the clusters of different levels as virtual folders or virtual directories, each of which contains virtual folders or virtual directories of the clusters of lower level, wherein the virtual folders or virtual directories of the clusters of the lowest levels contain titles of documents.  
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 2 , characterized in that, the upper bound of the number of clusters in each level and the upper bound of the number of documents in each cluster of the lowest level are designated by the user, wherein, if the number of documents in a cluster of a current lowest level is greater than its upper bound, then the documents in the cluster are further clustered so as to generate clusters of lower level, until the number of documents contained in each cluster of the lowest level is smaller than said upper bound; if the number of the documents is smaller than the upper bound, then the titles of the documents are displayed directly.  
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 2 , characterized in that, the upper bound of the number of clusters in each level and the upper bound of the number of documents in each cluster of the lowest level are determined automatically by the user's apparatus based on the display settings of the display device and the contents to be displayed, wherein, if the number of documents in a cluster of a current lowest level is greater than its upper bound, then the documents in the cluster are further clustered so as to generate clusters of lower level, until the number of documents contained in each cluster of the lowest level is smaller than said upper bound; if the number of the documents is smaller than the upper bound, then the titles of the documents are displayed directly.  
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 3 , characterized in that each displayed page only displays those clusters or document titles directly belonging to the same cluster of the higher level, and the contents of the page to be displayed are not clustered until the page is displayed.  
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 5 , characterized in that, upon receiving a display instruction, the clusters of the highest level or the document titles of the highest level are first displayed; when a cluster is selected, then the documents contained in the cluster is further clustered, and the sub-clusters or document titles contained in that cluster are displayed based on the clustering result; when a document title is selected, then the content of the document is displayed.  
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 6 , characterized in that said upper bounds are so determined that the content of each page displaying the clusters or document titles can be entirely encompassed within a single display screen.  
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 6 , characterized in that the topics of respective clusters or documents are concurrently displayed at corresponding positions, wherein the topics are respectively composed of a predetermined number of features having the biggest weights in the respective feature vectors, obtained by clustering, of the respective clusters or documents.  
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 8 , characterized in that the topics of the clusters or documents are modified according to the topics of their parent clusters.  
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 8 , characterized in that the abstracts of respective clusters or documents are concurrently displayed at corresponding positions, wherein the weights of the sentences are computed by use of the weights of the keywords contained in said topics, and the abstracts are respectively composed of a predetermined number of sentences having the biggest weights in the documents or the clusters.  
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 10 , characterized in that the abstracts of the clusters or documents are modified according to the abstracts and/or topics of their parent clusters.  
   
   
       12 . The method of  claim 6 , characterized in that the abstracts of respective clusters or documents are concurrently displayed at corresponding positions, wherein the weights of the sentences are computed on the basis of the weights, obtained by clustering, of the keywords in the sentences, and the abstracts are respectively composed of a predetermined number of sentences having the biggest weights in the documents or the clusters.  
   
   
       13 . The method of  claim 12 , characterized in that the abstracts of the clusters or documents are modified according to the abstracts and/or topics of their parent clusters.  
   
   
       14 . An apparatus for displaying a plurality of documents, comprising: 
 clustering means for: clustering said plurality of documents, organizing those documents having common features into respective clusters based on the result of the clustering, clustering the documents contained in the respective generated clusters, and organizing those having common features into respective finer clusters;    a display device for dynamically displaying on the user interface said plurality of documents, document titles or clusters; and    a controller for controlling said display device to display the clusters of different levels as virtual folders or virtual directories, each of which contains virtual folders or virtual directories of the clusters of lower level, the virtual folders or virtual directories of the clusters of the lowest levels contain titles of the documents.    
   
   
       15 . The apparatus of  claim 14 , characterized in further comprising: 
 a user input device for designating by the user the upper bound of the number of clusters of each level and the upper bound of the number of documents in each cluster of the lowest level,    wherein the controller are further configured so that if the number of document in a cluster of the lowest level is greater than said upper bound, then the clustering means is controlled to further cluster the documents in said cluster into finer clusters, until the number of documents contained in each cluster of the lowest level is smaller than said upper bound; if the total number of the documents is smaller than said upper bound, then the display device is controlled to display the document titles directly.    
   
   
       16 . The apparatus of  claim 14 , characterized in further comprising: 
 display parameter configuring means for determining, according to the display settings of the display device and the contents to be displayed, the upper bound of the number of clusters of each level and the upper bound of the number of documents in each cluster of the lowest level.    wherein the controller are further configured so that if the number of document in a cluster of the lowest level is greater than said upper bound, then the clustering means is controlled to further cluster the documents in said cluster into finer clusters, until the number of documents contained in each cluster of the lowest level is smaller than said upper bound; if the total number of the documents is smaller than said upper bound, then the display device is controlled to display the document titles directly.    
   
   
       17 . The apparatus of  claim 15 , characterized in that said controller is further configured to control said display device to only display in each page the clusters or document titles belong directly to the same parent cluster, and control said clustering means o that the contents to be displayed in a page are not clustered before said page is displayed.  
   
   
       18 . The apparatus of  claim 17 , characterized in that said control is further configured to, upon receiving display instruction, control said display device to first display the page of the clusters or document titles of the highest level; when a cluster is selected through the user input device, then control the clustering means to cluster the documents contained in the selected cluster, and control the display device to display the clusters or document titles contained in the selected cluster according to the result of the clustering operation; when a document title is selected through the user input device, then control the display device to display the content of the selected document.  
   
   
       19 . The apparatus of  claim 16 , characterized in that said display parameter configuring means is further configured to so determine said upper bounds that the contents of each page for displaying the clusters or documents could be totally encompassed within the screen of the display device.  
   
   
       20 . The apparatus of  claim 16 , characterizing in further comprising: 
 a topic generator for, based on the clustering results, generating the topics of respective clusters or documents from a predetermined number of features having the greatest weights in the feature vectors of respective clusters or documents,    wherein the controller is further configured to control said display device to display concurrently the topics of respective clusters or documents at corresponding positions.    
   
   
       21 . The apparatus of  claim 20 , characterized in that said topic generator is further configured to modify the topics of said clusters or documents according to the topics of the parent clusters.  
   
   
       22 . The apparatus of  claim 20 , characterized in further comprising: 
 an abstractor for computing the weights of sentences on the basis of the weights of the keywords contained in the topics generated by the topic generator and composing abstracts from a predetermined number of sentences having the greatest weights in a document or cluster,    wherein the controller is further configured to control said display device to display concurrently the abstracts of respective clusters or documents at corresponding positions.    
   
   
       23 . The apparatus of  claim 22 , characterized in that said abstractor is further configured to modify the abstract of the cluster or document according to the topic and/or abstract of the parent cluster.  
   
   
       24 . The apparatus of  claim 18 , characterized in further comprising: 
 an abstractor for, based on the results of the clustering operations, calculating the weights of the sentences based on the weights of the keywords in the sentences and composing an abstract from a predetermined number of sentences having the greatest weights in the document or cluster,    wherein the controller is further configured to control said display device to display concurrently the abstracts of respective clusters or documents at corresponding positions.    
   
   
       25 . The apparatus of  claim 24 , characterized in that said abstractor is further configured to modify the abstract of the cluster or document according to the topic and/or abstract of the parent cluster.